


In Living Color

by merisunshine36



Series: Killmonger Stories [1]
Category: Black Panther (2018), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Closeted Character, Come Marking, Emotional Constipation, Established Relationship, Happy Ending, M/M, Open Relationships, Polyamory Negotiations, Pre-Canon, Regret, lots of feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-19
Updated: 2018-04-25
Packaged: 2019-04-24 21:45:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14364333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merisunshine36/pseuds/merisunshine36
Summary: Tony and Rhodey have been together for ages. They have an established rhythm and it works. Then one day Erik walks into their lives, and makes for a very pleasant interruption.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to all the incredible people who helped me pull this thing together. To thedeadparrot and roga for their amazing beta work, amosanguis for letting me pick her brain about life in the U.S. Navy, and to ionthesparrow for keeping me from making fatal mistakes my descriptions of Southern California topography. All remaining mistakes are my own.

_March  2005_

Rhodey tipped his chair backwards so he could see down the hallway better. Tony had escaped their meeting, and Rhodey was duty-bound to hunt him down before the next set of presentations got going. They had been tapped for an all-day powwow with MIT’s research consortium on engines and fuel. It was a blatant grab for Stark Industries funding on the university’s part. Tony, on the other hand, was there to see what brilliant minds he might be able to harvest for his own nefarious plans. Pepper had pulled Rhodey in ostensibly to represent his connection to the DoD’s research arm. The slightly crazed edge to her voice when she'd called had let him know that his true purpose was to keep Tony in his seat and out of trouble.

A task at which he had failed, since there were five minutes left before Tony's scheduled talk and he was nowhere to be found. He wasn't answering his phone, either.

To add insult to injury, Tony had made off with Rhodey's lunch during the break.  Rhodey had been careful to claim the last chicken salad from among the shitty ham and turkey sandwiches that made up the bulk of the day's catered lunch options. After all, chicken salad was the king of all box lunches.  Rhodey had fake-accidentally elbowed aside the Assistant Dean of Research to get to that lunch, only to give in to a fit of weakness and hand it over to Tony as soon as he pouted in Rhodey's direction. He was very aware that he was a lost cause where Tony was concerned, even if appeasing Tony was often against his best interests.

Rhodey was on the verge of bribing undergrads to break him into some of the secured labs (which were ideal Tony hiding spots), when he found Tony camped out in a completely ordinary classroom at the far end of a hall. He was parked in front of a whiteboard with a young black guy, the two of them engrossed in a bunch of TEM images projected directly onto the surface, all available white space covered in notes and equations scribbled in a rainbow of colors.

Rhodey knocked on the doorway. It took a moment for Tony catch on to his presence, then his face lit up. Rhodey just tapped on his watch face and tried to maintain the kind of stern expression he imagined was expected of an officer of the U.S. Air Force.

"Lieutenant Colonel Rhodes!" Tony exclaimed.  "Perfect timing. You gotta meet this guy, he's great. Erik Stevens. Annapolis grad, now getting in a little materials science in our beloved alma mater."

Tony slung an arm around Rhodey's shoulders, the three different uncapped whiteboard markers he held between his fingers coming dangerously close to staining Rhodey suit. Gingerly, Rhodey freed himself.

Erik strode forward and shook his hand, his grip firm and confident. Rhodey studied him carefully. There was a gravitas in the way Erik held himself that made him stand out from the usual grad student hordes. His broad shoulders and powerful forearms spoke of hours at the gym. His trousers had been carefully pressed, and the sharp edge of his fade looked like he'd stepped out of the barber shop that morning. The only thing casual thing about him was the heavy gold chain tucked into the collar of his shirt.

"Young Erik here," Tony continued, "is abandoning a glorious career scientific research to offer himself up to the Navy SEALS as cannon fodder this summer. He works in theoretical vibranium research. Totally untapped field. Do you even know the half of what I could do with a chunk of that stuff?"

"I'm glad I don't," Rhodey replied. "Vibranium--isn't that fantasy stuff?" He found it hard to keep the skepticism out of his voice.

Erik smiled enigmatically. "Space travel used to be a fantasy, too, sir."

Rhodey reluctantly hummed his agreement, then made their excuses before hustling Tony back into the conference room. Castles in the sky were Tony's thing, not his.

 

* * *

 

 

 _From: Tony Stark;_ _number1stunna@si.com_

 _To: James Rhodes;_ _jim.rhodes@yahoo.com_

_Date: June 3, 2005, 2:38 a.m._

_Subject: GOOD STUFF IN HERE_

_Attachments_ : _vibranium_energy_harvest_stevenserik_v13_rev5.doc_

 

 _From: James Rhodes;_ _jim.rhodes@yahoo.com_

 _To: Tony Stark;_ _number1stunna@si.com_

_Date: June 3, 2005, 9:14 a.m._

_Subject:  Re: GOOD STUFF IN HERE_

_I don't care how smart you think he is, anything you read about "secret Wakandan vibranium stores" belongs on the shelf in the library next to the 9/11 Truth Statement._

 

 _To: Tony Stark;_ _number1stunna@si.com_

 _From: James Rhodes;_ [ _j_ ](mailto:jim.rhodes@yahoo.com) _im.rhodes@yahoo.com_

_Date: June 7, 2005, 3:25 p.m._

_Subject:  Re: Re: GOOD STUFF IN HERE_

_the cpt america shield- >wakandan vibranium…that's probably not all of it. He could be on to something!    _

 

 _To: Tony Stark;_ _number1stunna@si.com_

 _From: James Rhodes;_ _jim.rhodes@yahoo.com_

_Date: June 7, 2005, 3:27 p.m._

_Subject: I FORGOT_

_Back at Malibu. Come out! DUM-E misses you._

 

Rhodey had put in a stretch of sixteen-hour days to clear everything off his agenda, so he didn't feel too guilty taking off for a little bit. Vacation was a relative term, anyway. It didn't stop anyone from emailing him, and it probably wouldn't stop Rhodey from answering, but at least he could get it done from Tony's pool deck instead of staring at the white walls of his office. It was a pretty short drive from his apartment near Edwards Air Force Base to Tony's spot up in Malibu; he had enough stuff up there that he didn't even bother packing. If things went the way Rhodey planned, they wouldn't be needing clothes anyway.

His fantasies crumbled into dust as soon as the mansion came into view. The front drive was a parking lot from the gate to the front door, a pounding bass line clearly audible from outside. He wasn't the only one paying a visit to the Stark household that weekend.  Rhodey cringed at the thought of trying to park out front, so he bypassed the main entrance in favor of pulling into the underground garage.

"Where's Tony?" Rhodey asked JARVIS. He didn't bother taking his keys out of the ignition; nothing short of a full-scale military assault could get past Tony's security system.

"Lt. Colonel Rhodes, you'll find Mr. Stark in the lab. I should warn you, his blood alcohol level is quite high this evening."

"Thanks, JARVIS."

"Forewarned is forearmed, sir."

He found Tony sitting at one of his workbenches, staring off into space, having clearly abandoned all the partying going on upstairs. The tabletop was covered in the leftover scraps of creation, pieces of burnt wire and a small squadron of coffee mugs, atop of which balanced a wireless keyboard. On the floor was a wastebasket overflowing with crumpled schematics and greasy hamburger wrappers. There was a distinct lack of hair metal in the background, and the soundproofing down here was such that they were sealed off from anything happening upstairs. The only sound was an idle whir as DUM-E trundled across the room, a bottle of water clutched in his claw. When Tony waved it away, DUM-E dropped the bottle on the ground and began stroking Tony's hair instead, whistling mournfully.

"Hey," Rhodey dropped onto the stool next to Tony.

"Heeyyy, it's my boo," Tony slurred cheerfully. He abandoned his drink in favor of taking Rhodey's cheeks between his hands to give him a wet smack on the lips. The heady smell of scotch hung around Tony like a fog, but Rhodey just let his whole body relax as he drunk in the sight of him once again. His cheekbones, his eyelashes, the cupid's bow shape of his mouth. Tony might be a mess sometimes, but he was Rhodey's mess.

"You didn't tell me you were entertaining."

"What? Upstairs?" Tony's eyes widened in surprise, like he'd forgotten there was anyone else in the house at all. "That's just a few friends. Anyway, forget about that. I'm birthing an idea. Cluster bomb. But - it's gonna use repulsor technology. Neighbor park in front of your driveway? Boom. Third world nation you need to wipe off the map? Goodbye." He mimed an explosion.

"Not that I don't think you're brilliant," Rhodey paused to claim the tumbler for himself,"but I think you've had enough."

"You know,   _Lieutenant Colonel_ , you used to be a man of passions and ideas. But at some point, you became a bureaucrat."

Rhodey pulled back, surprised to realize Tony's barbed remark had found a soft spot. Tony didn't seem to notice, however, he just pried his drink from Rhodey's fingers and polished off the rest in one go.

"The Jericho missile - that's what I'm gonna call it - is gonna end this whole Iraq thing once and for all."

"And then what?"

Tony tugged at Rhodey's shirt until it was freed from his trousers, then wormed his hand underneath. The cool press of his fingers against Rhodey's stomach sent a shiver down his spine. "And then all the good little boys in uniform can come home. "

"But I'm already here." Rhodey took up where Tony left off, nibbling at Tony's bottom lip and letting his fingers skate down towards Tony's fly. Maybe it was a stupid move given all the people upstairs, but no one had access to the lab except Pepper, and she already knew the score. Tony went boneless in response, a tiny groan escaping from his mouth.

He was weighing whether a quickie on the lab's lumpy old couch was worth the inevitable discomfort involved, when they were startled apart by an amused, "Oh, snap. Is that how it is?" from behind them.

Rhodey turned to face their audience and was surprised to see the young brother he remembered from MIT. Tony had gone on endlessly about him for the last few weeks, so the knowledge that this guy had been at MIT on the Navy's dime stood out at the front of his mind like a marquee in flashing lights. He looked entirely different this time, with loose jeans riding low on his hips and a t-shirt struggling to contain his biceps. Despite his best efforts, Rhodey couldn't help but notice that he was definitely Tony's type.

Tony didn't seem at all upset beyond the twist of his mouth that said he was annoyed at being interrupted. "Hey kid, isn't it past your bedtime? Besides, I thought they taught you in soldier school that you weren't supposed to ask."

Erik stepped forward, unphased by anything Tony had to say. "I told you, stop calling me kid. And who said I was telling?"

Rhodey decided to follow Tony's lead and deliberately assumed a relaxed pose, hands in his pockets. His heart rate wasn't quite back to normal yet, but damned if he'd let it show. If it came down to it, it was his word (and Tony's army of lawyers) against that of a no-name junior officer. Odds were low that this moment would result in the Air Force showing him the door...and yet.

Tony rose from his perch atop the stool. Rhodey took a moment to appreciate the skill of his tailor, who had somehow fashioned a pair of trousers which totally hid the semi that had been pressed against Rhodey's thigh thirty seconds ago. "Rhodey, you remember Erik. Got on A on that Master's thesis, please note that I helped. I expect at least third author attribution on any and all publications." Tony crossed his arms over his chest, self-satisfied.

"Yeah, I remember. You're the vibranium truther. Why are you here, anyway?"   

Erik raised an eyebrow but didn't take the bait. "Mr. Stark is putting me up for a few weeks, letting me use some of his equipment, get some more work done before I report to Coronado."

"SEALS, right?" That detail had stuck out in Rhodey's memory. "It'll be good to see a brotha in the SEALs."

They were interrupted again, this time by the sudden clatter of a distinctive set of high heels belonging to Tony's assistant and general life manager, Pepper.

"Tony, there are people having sex in the fountain, and if Happy doesn't kick them out in the next five minutes then I will. I am telling, you, I have  actual business to handle and I do not have time to buy off any more --", she trailed off. "Rhodey?"

"Hey, Pep."

Rhodey watched Pepper's gaze travel from his own untucked shirt, to the empty highball glass on the workbench, to Erik in his inappropriately low-slung jeans, and back again. She did that exasperated slow inhale thing Rhodey was convinced all women knew how to do. Whenever he'd been on the receiving end of that look as a kid, it meant that an ass whooping wasn't far behind.

When she spoke again, her voice was deliberately calm. "Okay, tell me. Is this the part where I need to leave?"

"Don't worry, Miss Pepper," Erik's previously neutral expression gave way to a big smile that lit up his entire face. He was a good actor. "I was just reminding these old heads that the party was upstairs."

 

*  * *

 

Rhodey slept fitfully, drifting in and out of consciousness. He was too old to drink as much as he had once Erik had herded them upstairs to join in the revelry, and now he was paying for it.  It didn't help that Tony was an active sleeper, which mostly meant that one or more of Tony's limbs were comfortably thrown across Rhodey at all times. Still, that much uninterrupted contact was a gift, and one of his favorite things about their limited time together. The one time Tony rolled away in the middle of the night, Rhodey just followed him across the bed, pressing his body flush against the warmth of Tony's back.  

Just as the room began to fill with the gentle light of early morning, Tony slipped out of bed.

"Up already?" Rhodey mumbled. It was still too much work to pick his face up from the pillow. "Didn't you just go to bed?"

He felt the warmth of Tony's hand on the back of his neck for a brief moment, then it was gone again. Rhodey cracked one eye open to watch Tony pull a hoodie over his head, still rubbing sleepily at his eyes.  "8:00 a.m. meeting. Secret project. Super classified. Go back to sleep, okay?"

The number of secrets Tony kept from Rhodey had always been few, and even those dwindled to almost nothing after the dark period in both their lives when Tony's diet had consisted of more cocaine and alcohol than food. A whisper of anxiety tugged at Rhodey, but he was too groggy to give it any real consideration. He let darkness take him under again.

Rhodey started awake a few hours later, with a foggy brain and a sour, stale mouth. The only signs that Tony had been there at all were the rumpled sheets on his side of the bed and the faint scent of his aftershave lingering on his pillow. There was no one around to see him but JARVIS, so he squeezed the pillow to his chest and just breathed it all in.

Rhodey's growling stomach forced him out of bed. He shook the lead out of his legs and stumbled into the ensuite. It was, in a sense, an outpost of the lab.  A series of notes in wax pencil were scrawled across the mirror. The countertop was a trove of medical odds and ends that Tony used to patch up the damage he took on every day, a hallmark of his trade. The scars left behind from those tiny burns and cuts dotted the backs of his hands like the markings of some strange animal. A bottle of aspirin the size of Rhodey's head held a place of honor, and next to it was the arsenal of razors and beard trimmers Tony required keep his facial hair experiments in order. What caught Rhodey's eye, however, was the string of condoms tossed on top of it all.

His stomach knotted unpleasantly, but he quickly tamped the feeling down. Their relationship had been an open one since the moment they'd gotten it together to move beyond the rounds of drunken gay chicken that had marked their first few years of sexual exploration. After swiping one of the woo woo free love relationship advice guides his sister Ruth kept piled on her bookshelves, Rhodey had even made a half-assed attempt at discussing it.  The result had been Tony's first marriage proposal, Rhodey's first rejection, and the decision that for the time being, they were just going to keep things casual.

That had been almost ten years ago.

Rhodey fired up the shower, cranked the heat to the edge of painful while steadfastly refusing to entertain thoughts of Tony with any of the leggy, bright-eyed starlets hovering over him last night. He had worked up a pretty good state of mental blankness when the glass wall of the shower flashed once, twice, then resolved into a gigantic video feed of Tony's face. Rhodey started violently. It was only thanks to the good work of his therapist that he didn't hit the floor.

"The fuck is your problem?" Rhodey choked out.  

Tony flinched, apologetic. "Sorry, sorry, sorry. I forgot. Surprises are bad. You gotta admit it's pretty badass though. I figured I could cancel at least one meeting a week if I turned my shower time into video conference time."  

Rhodey ran a hand over his face. "Fine, whatever. What is it?"

"Lord Nikon here is making brunch, and he told me that I had to wake you up for it." The screen flashed again and he could see Erik balanced on the balls of his feet in front of the oven door as he stared intently at whatever was inside.  "Don’t worry, he can't see you. Unless you want him to, because we can definitely make that happen."

Rhodey grabbed a towel from the rack and threw it over the screen. Tony's confused voice faded as Rhodey retreated to the main sleeping area, which was blessedly mirror-free. Although he did look at the giant French doors leading out to the balcony with a renewed sense of suspicion.

He yanked open the set of drawers that he'd claimed for his own uses, and quickly felt any lingering irritation he had melt away. Tony had a habit of leaving little gifts in there, like silk pajamas with fighter planes all over them, or the weird boxer briefs with a custom sized "jewel pouch" that he'd been super obsessed with for a while. There was a new shirt in there now, a soft Henley in a deep purple. It had a scrap of paper sitting on top that said _Wear this one. This color is good on you_. He pulled it on and headed downstairs.

 

* * *

 

 

Rhodey found them both sitting with their backs against the kitchen island, studying a soufflé in the oven. Erik had on a t-shirt two sizes too large with streaks of dried egg near the collar. His contacts had been swapped out for the kind of wire rimmed spectacles you usually only saw on the AARP crowd. Every few minutes, he'd make a worried little sigh and run his tongue along the inside of his lower lip.  His toe peeked out through a hole in one of his socks. Rhodey found the whole scene weirdly endearing.

"Five bucks says it collapses once it comes out." Tony rolled onto his knees and put his face right up against the glass.

"Respectfully, Mr. Stark, I know what I'm doing."

"Mr. Stark is my father, don't call me that."

"Don't insult my cooking and we've got a deal." Tony scowled and disappeared into the pantry, which was all Erik was going to get as far as Tony admitting defeat.

Rhodey already felt like a third wheel--it had been ages since he'd seen Tony just roll over like that for anyone who wasn't Pepper. The two of them kept up their idle bickering as they plowed through the enormous brunch Erik had prepared.  There was the soufflé (which didn't fall), and ham, and biscuits, and lovely fresh raspberry preserves which Tony proudly proclaimed that the girl at the farmer's market had given him for free. Erik kept pushing more onto Rhodey's plate, until he felt like was about to burst.

"Where you'd learn to make all of this?" As for as Rhodey's cooking skills were concerned, he could grill a steak and that was pretty much it.

Erik shrugged. "Been cooking since I was twelve. Scrambled eggs got boring after a while, and the library had hella cookbooks from the seventies. I make a mean tuna noodle casserole, too."

Tony peppered Erik with endless rounds of questions about his military career. They'd apparently developed something of a routine, if the way Erik ignored half of them was anything to go by. It gave Rhodey a powerful sense of deja-vu. When they were in school together he'd spent a lot of time defending his choices to Tony, who had wanted nothing more to set Rhodey up with a job at SI and a bachelor pad for the two of them.  

"I just don't understand what you get out of it." Tony uncorked a bottle of champagne and topped off everyone's orange juice.

Erik pointed his fork at Tony accusingly. "What do  you get out of selling bombs?"

"It's not even remotely the same thing. You're putting yourself in the line of fire. SI is perfecting modern warfare. In twenty years, you won't even need soldiers on the ground. Everything will be remote. The human element will be obsolete."

"You really believe that." Rhodey shook his head.

Tony put a hand to his heart, pretending like he was surprised that Rhodey disagreed with him. "Et tu, Brute?"

The first items on their list of forbidden discussion topics were: anything having to do with Operation Iraqi Freedom, DADT, or politics in general. And yet, here they were.

"You'll always need people on the front lines, to fix everything the technology fucks up. " Erik liberally slathered another biscuit with jam and shoved it into his mouth. "The Jericho missile may be perfect when it leaves the lab, but what do you think is gonna happen after it's shipped from Cali to Bagram and has to sit in a crate for three months?"

Rhodey gave himself another generous glug of champagne. He knew all this to be true, but he had also made his peace with it. Maybe it was a good thing to be shaken up every now and then. "Okay, I'll bite. You've clearly come up with a solution, so lay it on me."

Erik sat up straight, a fire in his eyes. "Redistribution of resources. Lifting up the poor. Creation of a new world order."

Tony scoffed.  "We tried that before, and the result was East Berlin and the Red Guard. I don't need to tell you that's something we don't need to repeat." Rhodey laid a placating hand on Tony's knee.

Erik just settled back in his seat, unfazed at Tony's doubt. "Maybe they just didn't do it right the first time. Maybe somebody new needs to try."

 

* * *

 

 

Rhodey wanted to be a gracious host, but Erik's presence in the house had subtly but undeniably shifted their orbit. He couldn't really complain, either--the Malibu house had been built for the two of them, but it was still Tony's house, and Tony seemed happy. But Rhodey's quiet morning coffee routine was now marked by the high-pitched whine of the blender as it churned out Erik's morning protein shake. And he had to move his car twice to make room for the load-in of the lab scale mass spectrometer Tony had "borrowed" from SI's nearby storage facility for Erik to use. Once it was in place, JARVIS regretfully informed Rhodey that there was classified activity taking place in the lab, and he would be welcome to return in twenty-four hours.

Rhodey had done this best to pry the nature of their super-secret work out of Tony, but failed to get anything beyond the enthusiastic declaration that Tony was going to sell all his holdings in fossil fuels, because whatever Erik was working on was going to render them obsolete.

After six hours of abandonment, Rhodey had begun to consider heading back home for a bit. But then Tony had resurfaced unexpectedly, looking a little lost.

"I think I just got kicked out of my own lab."

"What? Can he do that?"

Tony had dropped onto the couch and put his head in Rhodey's lap. "He brought up reparations. I was gonna argue, but then I remembered that time we watched  Roots with your parents over winter break, and I didn't. "

Rhodey had wondered if that warm feeling in his chest was like what a parent felt like when their kid finally learned to ride a bike. "Forty acres and a mass spec, I like it." A thought occurred to him. "When do I get mine?"

At present, they were busy enjoying one of the better parts of having Erik around - his morning workout.  Rhodey had been invited to join Erik once already, but honestly, he was afraid of embarrassing himself. Erik was taking this SEAL thing seriously. Every single thing he did was some next level shit.

Rhodey and Tony were on the  balcony outside of a room that served as Pepper's office whenever she was around. It was empty of furniture save for a lucite desk, a laptop, and a tidy six-inch stack of file folders. She kept no personal effects there, which struck Rhodey as odd, but Pepper had always seemed a little different to him. In order to work for Tony, you probably had to be.  

"That is one a helluva view," Rhodey confessed. He reluctantly tore his gaze away from the sight of Erik doing pushups on the pool deck, the muscles in his shoulders flexing under the additional weight of the twenty-pound plate he'd placed on his back.

Erik was sweating despite the cool morning breeze; the forecast promised that the mercury would just barely crack the low 70s today. Rhodey was still huddled into his fleece. He had always hated early summer in Southern California. He'd grown up in Philly, where even with spring still holding on, it wasn't unusual to experience the kind of heat that would grab you in a chokehold and not let go. The air would be thick with the smell of trash waiting for pickup and the chemical sweetness of the fumes coming off the old Sunoco refinery, but it was somehow perfect for sitting up on the roof with your boys from down the block and a couple of lagers. Out here in Malibu, it wasn't hot enough yet to be tempted by the ocean, so the only thing to do was practice layering clothing and wait for July to come.

Tony peeked over Rhodey's shoulder. "I've got binoculars somewhere if you wanna you to see up close."

"Binoculars? Isn't that a little--".

"I can see you judging me, but this is different. He's putting on a show. Watch." Tony put his fingers between his lips and produced a loud, piercing whistle.

Erik paused and pulled off his headphones. "What?"

"Don't you want to take a break?" Tony yelled.

Erik gave Tony an incredulous look then went back to what he was doing, only this time the push-ups were one-handed. Tony turned to Rhodey with a look on his face that plainly said, " _see?_ "

"So did you already hit that?" Rhodey asked. "Or are you just planning to?"

Tony took a step back and crossed his hands over his chest defensively. "If I was, I would have told you."

"Come on, Tony." Rhodey didn't know why he was pushing. Tony had always been honest, even during times when Rhodey would have honestly preferred a little white lie or three. "I know I'm not always around and it's not realistic for you to keep a list, or--but he's a good looking guy."

There were three rules to live by in the Stark-Rhodes household: wrap it up, get tested, no secrets. For the most part, the rules had served them pretty well, although Tony had left Rhodey in the dust in the bedpost notch competition.

"Rhodey, they told me you were smart. If there's anyone in this house he's looking at, it's definitely not me."

It was times like this Rhodey was glad he was melanin-endowed and therefore not a visible blusher. He just wasn't like Tony, couldn't do that thing where he seduced people like it was his birthright as much as the five properties and the corporate empire. Rhodey grabbed Tony gently by the chin and drew him in for a kiss, deflecting. "I'm gonna make a lunch run. You coming?"

"Pass - Pepper is coming over to fetch me. We have a project, and then we're gonna go get mani pedis."

"Is this the same project you disappeared to a few mornings ago? You know, I thought you were in the lab all that time, but when JARVIS finally let me in, Erik was passed out on the couch and DUM-E was trying to cover him with a set of blueprints."

"Mmmaybe. It might be that. Or it might be something else."

"Come on, tell me what it is. Wait, I'll guess. A spaceship? No, wait, you've bought an island so you can declare sovereignty and stop paying taxes."

"I think I already have an island. The company uses it to test land to air missile launch capability." he waved Rhodey off. "Don't worry about it, it's a terrible project that involves an army of lawyers and maybe breaking my father's will a little bit. I promise, you'll love it."

 

* * *

 

 

Rhodey took time to change before heading down to the garage. Much to his surprise, Erik was already there, leaning against the passenger side door, headphones still around his neck. He had probably headed over right from his workout; Rhodey could smell the sharp tang of sweat coming off his skin.

"Can I ride with you?" he asked, shifting from one foot to another. Rhodey waved him on in.

It turned out that Erik had a whole shopping list, and Rhodey had been volunteered as chauffeur. He wanted to hit up a GNC, which meant a longer drive than Rhodey had planned on. He didn't talk much on the way there though, instead flipping through radio stations as an unending series of wind-worn oceanfront houses blurred past them in rapid succession.

"Looks like you know your way around," Erik remarked. He was flicking the air vents open and shut. Rhodey couldn't help but notice how long his fingers were. He had the kind of hands that most people would tell you were good for piano, or if you were a kid that looked like Erik did, good for palming a basketball. "You spend a lot of time out here?"

"I've been at Edwards the last few years, rent a place right off base." Rhodey replied. "And…Tony and I have been coming out here since he built that house in '95. He wanted a place where we could-" Rhodey found himself tripping over the words. "-where we would could get away from everything."

Erik made a soft sound of surprise. "Y'all been together that long?"

"You could say that," Rhodey said, keeping it vague. It had actually been longer, but Rhodey didn't have the ability or desire to explain the three-year break they'd taken right after Tony's father passed.  Erik worried his lower lip beneath his teeth, started and stopped a sentence three times before Rhodey just said, "whatever it is, spit it out - you're making me nervous."

"Damn. Okay, I'm not trying to be up in your business, but you know that party when you first got here? After that one chick puked on my shoes I was headed back to my room and I saw Stark in the hall talking to some dude. I don't know exactly what he was doing but he was not giving a job interview. Least not the kind that's legal."

Rhodey maneuvered around a sedan driven by someone who was obviously texting, buying himself some time while he weighed his response. It was strange and at the same time oddly touching to realize that the palpable nervousness he'd sensed coming from Erik earlier was because he'd been worried that Tony was two-timing him.

"Tony and I have an...agreement," he said, choosing his words carefully. It was tempting to unload ten year's worth of bottled up feelings on him, about how Tony dealt with the shittier aspects of his upbringing by seeking affection from anyone willing to offer it. And how in turn, Rhodey was both jealous of his freedom and relieved that Tony was still enough of a playboy that Rhodey was able to maintain the polite fiction that they were just friends after all these years. But Rhodey of all people knew better than to start down that path.  He turned into the strip mall parking lot and cut the engine.

"An agreement."  Erik undid his seatbelt, but made no move to get out of the car. "So that means Stark lets you get some on the side too, right?"

Rhodey scratched the back of his neck. This was more than he'd talked about this to anyone other than his sister in his entire life. "Yeah - that's about the shape of it."  

He had forgotten what it was like to have a stomach full of butterflies. Turns out it just made you feel like throwing up.  And Rhodey recognized that same fear in Erik's eyes, but didn't know what to say or how to make it better, because he'd been hauling it around for twenty years.

Erik tongued the inside of his lower lip again, a nervous tell that Rhodey wasn't sure Erik was even aware of. He drew in a measured breath, like he was preparing to round a corner and take enemy fire.  "So if, I - if I was looking to for someone to help a brotha out before the military put him on lockdown again, you might be able to be that guy?"

"Yeah, I might be," asked Rhodey, and even to his own ears his voice sounded thin and anxious. The air inside the car was stuffy and silent save for the ticking of the engine as it cooled.

"Okay, good," Erik replied, and leaned across the divide to kiss him. It began as just the barest brush of their lips, with Erik readily pushing for more when Rhodey didn't immediately push him away. Erik's tongue was hot as he licked and nipped at Rhodey's mouth. It wasn't at all like kissing Tony, who was always oiled and manicured from top to tails. Erik smelled mostly of sweat, with just an underlying hint of whatever bodywash he used. He kept his hands mostly to himself, save for one tentative hand on Rhodey's knee, which Rhodey covered with his own.

They parted slowly and let their breathing recover. Rhodey left his fingers curled around the nape of Erik's neck. The idea of leaving the sanctuary of this space to wrestle with what any of this meant was daunting.  The whole thing seemed more like a hazy fantasy - after all, what were the odds that another gay, black, military man with a penchant for engineering would just happen to fall into his lap?

"Of all the gin joints in all the towns in the world, you walk into mine," quipped Rhodey.

Erik's face went blank. Apparently _Casablanca_ references didn't play as well as they used to. He rolled out his shoulders and looked at the road, watching the traffic speed past as he considered his response. "I guess you just got lucky."


	2. Chapter 2

Once they were inside the store, Erik grabbed a basket and immediately began filling it with bottles of muscle milk and brightly colored supplements. Rhodey just followed him around in a daze, barely paying attention to anything that was going on. He didn't remember the last time he'd touched anyone that wasn't Tony. Actually, no, that was a lie - he remembered it exactly, because immediately after he'd located his pants and beat a hasty retreat from the dude's house, he'd spent the afternoon leaving increasingly cryptic and desperate messages on Ruth's voicemail. When she called him back, it was only to tell him to pull his head out of his ass and just admit what had been obvious for years, that he was stupid in love with one Anthony Edward Stark.

And presumably they were still in love, even though Rhodey's lower lip was still a little swollen from where Erik had bitten him. _Where he fucking  bit him_. Rhodey had always considered himself more of a Barry White, gentle Casanova type - that raunchy shit was more of Tony's thing - but Erik's very presence seemed to invite the kind of challenge that you just couldn't back down from. Maybe this was the stuff midlife crises were made of.  

When they got to the checkout counter, Erik frowned at his wallet, thumbing past each one of his credit cards thoughtfully before settling on the few crumpled twenties in the billfold. Rhodey nudged him aside and put his credit card on the counter.

"Don't worry about it. I got you."

Erik made as if he was going to say something for a second before he shrugged and returned his wallet to his back pocket. "Cool, thanks."

He let Erik pick the lunch spot, which turned out to be a spectacular moment of bad judgement. It was some kind of health joint whose claim to fame was the twenty-four different raw juice options on offer. The girl behind the counter smiled toothily at them when they entered, cowrie shells clinking in her  blonde dreadlocks as she dumped the ingredients in Erik's horrifying juice order into the blender. At one point, he asked her to add some roasted beets from the salad bar. Rhodey tried, and ultimately failed, to keep the look of disgust off his face.

"What?"

"Beets are not a food, they're a punishment."  Rhodey wordlessly handed over his credit card again, wondering if paying for this lunch made this officially a date. Maybe he should duck outside and call Tony now, even if he wasn't exactly sure what any of this was.

"Would you put diesel in a jet? No, you wouldn't. I don't put poison in my body."

The clerk nodded in agreement, her blue eyes solemn as she handed Rhodey the little paper slip to sign. Erik's smug satisfaction was practically palpable.  "See? She knows what I'm talking about."

"That's cause she don't know you. Some of us saw you drink your weight in alcohol last night."

Erik ducked his head, grinning as they wove their way through a series of tables packed together like sardines. He kept a careful distance from Rhodey, presumably so they could pass as two guys hanging out in a completely platonic fashion, who obviously who didn't have their tongues down each other's throats thirty minutes ago.  They snagged the one free table by the window; Rhodey was glad to have that little bit of privacy.

"Nah, nah," Erik protested, "partying is different. Last night I was _living_. But day to day?  In-N-Out, Hot Cheetos, Snickers? All that shit is just stuff the man tries to feed us to bring us down. It's a pipeline. They funnel us right through it and when our bodies break down, and then they make money off of that, too."

Rhodey's thoughts went to his grandfather and his daily ritual of pricking his finger to manage his blood sugar. It was always worst around the holidays, when he'd spend all day trying to figure out if he could eat that slice of pound cake or an extra piece of sweet potato pie.  

"All right, " Rhodey conceded, "I see you. Speaking of the man, what are you doing in Tony's lab anyway? He was sending me quotes from your thesis for a month, and now you've got him embezzling major equipment from SI."

Erik preened. "I'm uncovering truths." He fingered the ever-present gold chain around his neck for a few seconds, then yanked it off over his head. "You see this ring? It's made from vibranium. This stuff could change the world." There was a promise of challenge in the set of his mouth. Rhodey had a feeling that he'd get one chance here to offer his opinion, and that his skepticism would not be welcome. He had to tread carefully, just like when his mother was in her gem healing phase.

"So this is what you've been running all those tests on. What for?"

"It's malleable, bulletproof, promotes wound healing, and most importantly, it can potentially absorb any kinetic energy it encounters, then store it for later release."

"Okay, so what's the catch? Why aren't you a billionaire yet?"

"There's less than a kilo of it floating around in the public domain. Captain America's shield was supposedly made from it, but they never found it after the crash."  

A beam of sunlight glanced off the ring, and for an instant it seemed to throw off an unearthly purple glow. When Rhodey blinked again, it was back to resembling a dull, innocuous metal, like any piece of cheap jewelry from a mall kiosk.

He touched the ring and found that it still held the warmth of Erik's skin. "Assuming this is real - where'd you get this?"

"Family heirloom." Erik gave the ring a gentle squeeze, then tucked it away again beneath his shirt.

"Who's handing out vibranium gifts in --where are you from, anyway?"

"Oakland, born and raised." Erik speared his tofu. "The ring was my daddy's. No idea where he got it from. This and his journal were they only things of his I managed to keep after he died and they shipped me off to foster care. I used to think--"

Erik was practically vibrating with the need to keep talking, but something was holding him back.

"Nothing you say here leaves this table, okay?"

"You're gonna say it's stupid," Erik shook his head at himself. "I used to think that my father wasn't really dead, that he'd just left Oakland for Wakanda, because it was so much better there. And maybe, if I took care of the ring, that he'd come back for it."

Rhodey could see the little boy who still lived inside of Erik, carrying around a decade's worth of hurt. After a childhood that tumultuous, it was no surprise that the military had called to him.

"You're not the only person who thought like that - my Aunt Sula used to say her mother knew a girl from Wakanda. She said it wasn't all herders and cows like in National Geographic, and that it was actually Black Paradise. I always thought she had to be lying, because if any black person found paradise, why would they leave it for this?" He waved his hand in the air to indicate the weird food, wobbly-legged tables, and the thready voice of the singer responsible for the acoustic guitar cover of Aretha's 'Natural Woman' that was being piped from a set of iPod speakers behind the counter.

Erik's knee pressed up against his beneath the table. Rhodey's palms began to sweat, and he couldn't quite look Erik in the eye as a result. Erik's whole demeanor turned self-satisfied as all get-out. "I don't know, right now things are looking pretty good here," Erik said, grinning smugly.

 

* * *

 

Erik decided that Rhodey was his running buddy from then on. In the mornings Erik would drag him outside just as the sun was coming up, outfitted in a weighted vest that hurt Rhodey just to look at. Even with that obvious advantage, Rhodey had to put out his best effort to keep up. His heart was going a hundred miles an hour when Erik led them on a detour down to Malibu Pier, dragged Rhodey behind one of the piles, and dropped to his knees so he could tug Rhodey's cock from his shorts. The grip he had on Rhodey's hips was tight enough to bruise, urging him forward until his dick was bumping up against the back of Erik's throat and Rhodey forgot how to breathe. Rhodey rested a hand on the back of Erik's head, tracing the smooth planes of his skull, the strong sweep of his jaw.  When Rhodey couldn't hold off any longer, Erik pulled off at the last second and let his mouth fall slightly open as he was painted with ropey white streaks of come on his tongue, chest, and chin.

"Where the hell'd you learn that?" Rhodey paused to reconsider, then held a hand up to cut Erik off before he could answer. "Actually - I don't wanna know."

Erik wiped at his face and smirked. "MIT was a good place for research in the field."

Rhodey took some time to just lean up against the pier and catch his breath, inhaling the heavy smell of salt and seaweed that hung in the air. He didn't feel like himself, hadn't for the last few days.

Erik strode into the ocean until the frigid water was up to his waist, then ducked his head underneath. His hands were like ice when he returned, the shock of them waking up all the nerves on Rhodey's overheated skin.

"Why don't we take this back to the house?" suggested Rhodey. "I'm freezing my nuts off."  Erik kept kissing his neck. The tide was coming in, and the surf curled up around his ankles, painfully cold. It was hard to think.

Erik took a full step back and shook his head. The shadows beneath the pier made his expression hard to read. "Nah, that's not a good look."

Rhodey frowned. "Why?"

"You tell Tony yet? About this? Or you plan to sneak me in the back door?"  He crossed his arms over his chest, protective of himself but defiant at the same time.

Rhodey felt hot with embarrassment. He hadn't thought Erik was paying that much attention to what he and Tony got up to, which, in hindsight, was stupid. Erik Stevens didn't miss a beat. When Rhodey owned up to being a victim of his own inertia, Erik didn't even get mad, just patted him on the cheek and shook his head.

"I have some business to handle today, so I'll be out." Erik jabbed an an accusatory finger at the center of Rhodey's chest. "I expect you to handle yours, too."

 

* * *

 

 

Erik had been right - Rhodey owed Tony this information, but he'd been keeping everything bottled up. Tony had always made it seem so easy, rolling his casual exploits into their phone conversations the same way anyone else would talk about the weather. But every time Rhodey had opened his mouth, the words weren't there.

By the time they had returned to the house, Tony had already disappeared. He was out to go do a final look at a little turboprop plane he'd been planning on adding to his collection for some time now. Rhodey did his best to use his downtime to catch up on work, even though he quickly abandoned it in favor of clicking around on poorly designed relationship advice websites.  Apparently you were supposed to have these kind of talks with a couples therapists. Tony probably knew someone who would be willing to show up at his house with no advance notice, but Rhodey was pretty sure that explaining why he needed professional help to pull his thumb out of his butt and get his act together would be more trouble than it was worth in the first place.

When Tony came home, Rhodey was doing laps in the pool, which was blessedly heated to a comfortable temperature. He crouched at the end until Rhodey came up for air again, careful to keep his sneakers away from the puddles of water near the edge.

"Let's get out of here," Tony declared. "I made dinner reservations at seven. Well, Pepper made them, but I asked her to."

Rhodey waved Tony over to the edge of the pool. About one in four times, he could trick Tony into getting close enough that Rhodey could pull him in. It was completely worth ruining Tony's expensive suits to get one over on him, especially because it usually meant that Rhodey was responsible for getting Tony back out of that same wet suit later on.

Tony raised a skeptical eyebrow. "I'm not letting you pull me in, Lucy."

"I wasn't going to," Rhodey lied, hauling himself over the edge.

Tony held out his hand out to help when Rhodey was mostly upright. Rhodey made sure to cling extra hard to him so that he could drip on Tony as much as possible. He was rewarded by Tony's high-pitched squeal, which was pretty damn satisfying. "So, how fancy a place are we talking?"

"Uh…." Tony faltered.

Rhodey sighed. "I'll wear a jacket."

 

* * *

 

 

The restaurant was fancy enough that there were no prices on the menu, but there were more than a few people wearing jeans. As a blue collar city kid, Rhodey still found it unnerving that he couldn't always tell who the rich people were out here. On the other hand, it had resulted in his favorite people-watching game, "starving actor or trust fund baby?"

Pepper had gotten them a table tucked behind a screen, lit softly with a cluster of candles. Tony let Rhodey order. Tony would eat pretty much anything.  For him, food was fuel. He'd inhale a peanut butter sandwich as soon as beef tongue with sauce gribiche.

It was a tapas-style place, so everything was tiny, served on rustic earthenware platters done in miniature. Delicate morsels of smoked fish, pillowy rounds of fried cheese with olives. And ample amounts of rich red wine to finish it off. After the first bottle, Tony abandoned his fork and plucked a bacon-wrapped date from the little mason jar they were piled in. After a moment's indecision, he pressed it to Rhodey's mouth. Rhodey didn't stop him. He just allowed his eyes to fall shut and his mouth open, like it was Sunday morning and he was about to take communion. Rhodey let his tongue graze across the surface of Tony's thumb, and a full-body shiver passed over him.

"I let Erik blow me," Rhodey blurted out, regretting his lack of tact almost immediately. "Shit."

Tony took his time licking the rest of the sauce off his fingers, then methodically wiped his hands and neatly folded his napkin. "Your timing really leaves much to be desired." He pulled a fat envelope form inside his suit jacket pocket and thrust it into Rhodey's face. "Here. These are for you."

Rhodey unfolded the documents slowly, irrationally afraid that they were divorce papers for a marriage that didn't even exist. A quick scan revealed the only thing that might potentially be worse, which was a mess of legalese headed up by the words that LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT.

"Are you  dying?" Maybe he was being punished by God. If he was, it was unfair - they hadn't even made it past second base, and in the end, he had told Tony. It was a late reveal, but that had to count for something.

Tony rolled his eyes. "No, I'm not dying, you idiot. But look, here." He flipped through something like ten more pages of asset listings before he got to the information he wanted. "Here's what I'm leaving to you. If anything ever happened to me, I want to make sure you're taken care of."

There was a lot of money here. Retire on a yacht in Margaritaville money, and that was just the start of the list. "You're giving me the Testarossa?" Rhodey asked, incredulous. "You love that car. You lost your virginity in the front seat to that girl working at the Nathan's on Coney island. You told me that story at least twenty times."

"Duh," Tony replied, his expression warm. "That's why I know you'll take care of it. And here, look at this one, too."

The last set of documents is all the paperwork they'd need to put Rhodey's name on the deed to the Malibu house.

"I built it for us. You should own half." Tony took Rhodey's hand in his with a grip that was almost painful. The look in his eyes held the kind of excitement usually only seen when he was on the edge of discovering a new way to blow things up. "I want you to drop that lease on that box you're renting in Palmdale and come stay with me, now and forever. If the Air Force wants to show you the door, fuck 'em. I'll buy you a whole fleet of planes and you can fly them anywhere you want. Anything you need me to do, any lawsuit you need me to fight, I'll do it, just -"

"Tony, hold on a second." Rhodey worked his hand free. His pulse was going a million miles a minute. Was this what a heart attack felt like? "This is my job we're talking about; I'm coming up on my twenty in two years. And let's walk it back a second, did you even hear what I said earlier, about --"

"What do you want me to say? That I'm jealous? Well, I am jealous because, hello, have you seen him? The minute he wants to get his swirl on, call me immediately.  But that? Has nothing to do with this." He snatched up the thick stack of papers and shook it in Rhodey's face. "This is because I love you, and you're it for me. Sometimes I fuck other people, but that's just sex. Like dogs in heat. There's no one else I want to come home to. Except the bots. And okay, maybe Pep. And Happy. But no one else, I swear."

"You can't ask me this." Rhodey kept his voice low, more so that Tony couldn't see how badly he was trying to keep it together than because he thought anyone was bothering to eavesdrop. This kind of thing - the grand declarations, legal commitments beyond death - didn't have a place in their life together. He thought Tony had understood all that.  "Look, even if DADT wasn't an issue, Stark Industries is one of the biggest federal defense contractors in the country, and my job is to buy missiles. Property records are public information. Edwards is two hours from here. This is a serious conflict of interest we're talking about."

Tony shoved a garlic covered shrimp in his mouth, then emptied his glass of wine. He wiped his mouth off with the back of his hand and let his eyes fall shut, massaging his temples as if to chase away a headache. "So you're telling me no."  

It wasn't often that Tony looked really, truly hurt, but tonight was one of those times. He reminded Rhodey of a desaturated image, all of his normally bright colors on mute. Rhodey pressed his foot against Tony's beneath the table in a pathetic attempt at consolation.

"Yeah, Tony," Rhodey said weakly. "I'm telling you no."


	3. Chapter 3

Rhodey sat with Tony in near-silence for the entire drive back to the house. Happy did his best to avoid making eye contact with either of them, only looking into the rear view mirror when absolutely necessary.  Rhodey was relieved to find that Erik was holed up in his room once they were back at the mansion. A faint tinkling music was audible through his door, something otherworldly and psychedelic sounding.

Tony sniffed. There was a definite smell of weed hanging in the air. "Guess we know what kind of business he was handling. I'm insulted. He could have invited us."  Rhodey was mostly happy that this meant they wouldn't have to endure any pontification Erik might want to deliver on all the ways they'd fucked things up.

Rhodey flipped on the bedside lamp once they were back in Tony's bedroom. They moved around each other in companionable silence, following patterns set in college that had changed very little over the years. When Tony abandoned his clothes in a pile on the floor and went to go brush his teeth, Rhodey put everything that needed dry cleaning on a hanger, and the rest in the hamper. Tony's housekeeper would have just picked it up tomorrow, but it just seemed rude to leave Tony's mess lying there. Rhodey's grandmother used to work in houses like this, picking up after parties she'd never be invited to. The kind of woman she was, he wouldn't be surprised if she came to haunt him if he got out of line, either.

"Remember that time I mailed my stash to your parent's house?" Rhodey asked. He sprawled out against the headboard, still dressed, too emotionally wrung out and physically drained to bother putting his pajamas on.

Tony stuck his head out of the bathroom door. There was a spot of toothpaste on his cheek. "I do, because receiving drugs in the mail is a federal offense, and I was deeply wounded that my one true love wanted to see me incarcerated."

"My mother was starting to get suspicious. She kept giving me that look, the one where she'd get all squinty eyed like I smelled bad." He sighed. "That was good weed, too. "

Tony padded back into the bedroom and dropped himself into Rhodey's lap, naked. "It went to good use; I spent the next two weeks blazed out of my mind. You sure you don't wanna go next door and partake before we start with the makeup sex?"

Rhodey rolled his eyes, although he considered himself really lucky that no matter how happy or sad he felt, Tony was always up for a tumble in the sheets. He knew that they hadn't ended the night's conversation on any kind of reasonable note. He was mostly still mad at Tony, even. Who just dropped a bomb like that over dinner? But it was easier to just brush those feelings aside and focus his energies on expressing his deep appreciation of Tony's ass. Rhodey was definitely an ass man, and Tony's had been perfectly maintained by his personal trainer, all firm muscle with the sweetest little curve to it. He grabbed a handful now, squeezing and running his hands all over it, fingers teasing right at the base of Tony's tailbone.

"I know I don't want to get out of this bed, is what I'm sure of."

Tony rutted against him, his dick chubbed up but not all the way hard yet. His breath was hot and wet against the side of Rhodey's ear because he knew Rhodey was a sucker for that kind of thing. "You think if I made you scream, that Erik could hear you?" Rhodey groaned, his breath coming fast.  His dick throbbed just at the thought of it; it had been ages since they'd invited anyone into their bed. "I knew you wanted to fuck him, I could tell from the moment you met," Tony murmured into Rhodey's ear.

Tony's stomach jumped as Rhodey laid his fingers on Tony's dick, now upright and begging for attention. Rhodey put his fingers in Tony's mouth to shut him up for a second, using his free hand to dig around until he found the lube. Tony shivered in Rhodey's arms as he squirted a fat dollop of the cool liquid right on Tony's dick, then proceeded to work the shaft between his fingers real sweet and slow, until Tony's ongoing string of encouragement deteriorated into a high whine and he unloaded all over Rhodey's shirt.

They didn't even manage to get Rhodey's pants off after that. He just slid them past his knees just far enough to recline and get comfortable, then watched as Tony lowered himself slowly onto his cock. He paused to acclimate himself every few seconds, his hands a vice grip on Rhodey's shoulder.

"Did you get bigger? Cause you feel--fucking huge," Tony groaned as he slid down another inch. Rhodey knew Tony was just flattering him, but it made Rhodey's lizard brain perk up and preen all the same.

Rhodey planted his feet on the bed and grabbed Tony's hips, then started pounding up into Tony's body in earnest. Tony was still a little wine drunk and a lot orgasm drunk, and busied himself with sloppily licking into Rhodey's mouth, all minty and fresh as he bounced up and down in Rhodey's lap. Rhodey lost himself in the tight warm grip of Tony's body until his own release punched through him, leaving them a pile of sticky, messy limbs.

"Fuck," Rhodey laughed. He rolled over onto this stomach and snuggled his pillow. He wasn't really one for cuddling right after sex. It made him feel too hot. "I needed that."

"Sorry about earlier." Tony looked over at him, rubbing absentmindedly at his knee as the adrenaline washed from his system and all his aches and pains made themselves known. His hair was plastered to his forehead with sweat. A haircut was probably on the list of things Tony was long overdue for. "I shouldn't have dumped everything in your lap like that. "

A good post sexual haze always made Rhodey feel generous, which was, he thought fuzzily, probably part of Tony's plan all along. "Apology accepted."  Rhodey reached out to spread the mess of lube and come on Tony's thighs even deeper into his skin, idly fantasizing about a world where everyone in the street could smell Rhodey's claim on him. He trailed his fingers along the join of Tony's thigh and hip, searching for the little divot in Tony's thigh, a scar from a time when he'd been shot by a bb gun, long before they'd even met. "You're really okay with the Erik thing?"

"Why wouldn't I be? I just want you to be happy. If you're happy, I'm happy."

"Even if happy doesn't look like me on your arm at the Stark Industries holiday ball?"

Tony heaved a large sigh. "I'm trying, Rhodey.  And you'll always be my boo, even if you're too repressed to let me get you pregnant."

"Tone, don't be such a weirdo." Rhodey pushed himself onto his elbows. "I'm not repressed, I'm practical."

"You're definitely repressed, our babies would be cute." Tony blearily opened one eye. "I'm the better lay though, right?"

Rhodey dragged Tony down on top of him, their teeth clicking together a moment before he got the kiss he was going for. He didn't let Tony up until they were both out of breath, chests heaving. Sometimes words didn't really get the point across.

 

* * *

 

 

He stuck close to Tony for the next few days, not really bothering to leave the house. Erik made himself scarce outside of waking Rhodey up at 6:00 a.m. to join him in whatever physical torture he'd come up with for the day. Tony took Rhodey into the lab and showed him every little thing he was working on. They went over the plans for the Jericho missile in detail, and Rhodey had to admit that, if it came to fruition, it would be a serious threat to contend with.

Once Rhodey made it clear that he and Tony weren't headed for a dramatic breakup, Erik began to reappear again. Mostly he camped out on the couch with his nose buried in  _The Art of War_ , _T_ _he Prince_ , or any other number of classical texts that all shared a common theme of fucking other people over. Whenever Tony pulled up test footage of his work being deployed in the field, he'd stick a finger between the pages and roll to his feet to make comments while draped over Rhodey's shoulder. Rhodey would get caught up in the low rumble of Erik's voice or the way he communicated with his hands, and Tony would roll his eyes and make kissy faces at them.  

"You take all of this," Erik gestured between the three of them, "for granted. You act like it's normal. Most people aren't so lucky."

Tony was about to open his mouth and make a smart remark, so Rhodey cut him off with a brief kiss. He followed it with a peck on the forehead for Erik that was less about intimacy than it was a way of saying - okay, I hear you.

When Sunday rolled around, he took a holiday from Erik Stevens Boot Camp and slept in. It was nice, just wasting the day away with Tony tucked up against his side in a warm, sweat-sticky pile of limbs, dozing off in between rounds of lazy kissing. Rhodey blew Tony with two fingers curled up deep inside him, taking him easily down his throat with skill borne from long years of practice.  Tony left moon-shaped grooves in his forearm from where he'd bitten down to keep from crying out.

Tony produced his will a second time, and insisted that Rhodey take a copy and keep it somewhere safe. Rhodey held it gingerly, like it was a cursed object.

"But I'm fine, Tony. You can keep your money."

"Yes, you're an independent woman and don't need no man, I get it," Tony's mouth went tight around the edges. "Can we just agree that _I_ need you to take this money? I want to know that if I die, you'll be kept in silk underwear and you'll never have to wear Hanes again."

Rhodey grumbled his assent and tossed his copy of the paperwork on the dresser. This whole thing made him feel uncomfortable inside his skin. Until now they'd felt like unequal equals, at least. Rhodey handled his life, Tony (sorta kinda sometimes) handled his, and they'd meet up in between for smoking hot sex and the private island weekends where their luggage sometimes included significant amounts of barely-legal ordnance. They had inside jokes and their annual trip up to MIT where Tony would throw around his weight to get them access to the super classified research. On the rare occasion his sister came out and they'd all get together with Pepper and Happy, Rhodey felt full to bursting with love for the little family they'd created.

But now Tony had given him this incredible gift, and all it did was remind Rhodey that he had nothing to give back.

He unloaded all of this on to Erik the next day, perched backwards on the desk chair while he watched him clear the guest room of the few belongings he'd brought with him. Erik was due soon to report for his first day of what was enigmatically called Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training, where the Navy would do its level best to kill him for six months. Rhodey was proud that he was going through with it at the same time realizing all over again that he'd put his parents through hell when he'd been deployed during the Gulf War.

"Let me get this straight." Erik gave one last wistful look at his bong before tossing it in a box destined for the thrift store. Rhodey had followed Erik to his room just to watch him pack. He'd spent most of yesterday backing up his research onto flash drives, which he'd then put in a safe deposit box at a nearby bank. "He offered you millions of dollars and half the value of this house, and you don't want it."

"Yeah." Rhodey spins slowly in the chair, staring at the ceiling. "Or no, it's not that I don't want it, I just don't want it from him. It's not how I do. It's not how _we_ do."

Erik closed up the box and slid it out of the way, then raised his arms over his head to stretch, flashing the smooth planes of his abs in a move that was almost definitely on purpose. "With that much in the bank you could get a lot done," he said, tugging at his lower lip thoughtfully. Besides,  It's not like the transition would be difficult. Anything the Chair Force might make you do couldn't be much worse than sitting next to the pool anyway."

Rhodey threw a balled up sock at his head. Erik caught it and dropped it into a bag of things that were obvious trash, joined by half-empty supplement bottles and fliers for little community theater gigs he'd gone to see down at the pier.  He wouldn't be allowed to keep any personal items during BUD/S, and and Rhodey had a strong suspicion that Erik didn't have anyone else to leave his stuff with, either.

"Would you? Quit, I mean." It probably meant he was something of a narcissist, but Rhodey was drawn inexorably to all the parts of himself he saw in Erik, like they were so much space dust spinning towards the same star. It was clear they both felt the need be part of something larger than themselves, more than the individual contributions they could make behind a lab bench. It was a need so intense he wondered whether it was genetic, written into his life plans from the moment he was born. It meant they denied themselves the pleasures people took for granted, over and over, for years.

Erik paused in his work, clearly taking a moment to ponder his alternate life as not-so-idle rich. After a few moments he abruptly shook his head and said, "nah - I know what my purpose is. It's nice here, but this ain't it."

 

* * *

 

 

Tony and Rhodey took Erik out on his last night in Malibu. They let him take his pick of cars in the garage and then do time trials on a private airstrip Tony owned. Rhodey tried to call things to a halt when, in the middle of a spontaneous round of drag racing, Tony clipped a piece of air traffic control equipment and went into a tailspin. Acrid clouds of smoke billowed into the air, looking soft and eerie in the glow of the safety lights mounted up and down the runup.  Rhodey's heart seized in his chest, until seconds later Tony called out, "I'm okay!" and waved out the window.

"That was _dooope_ ," Erik enthused once Tony emerged from the wreckage, giddy and high on adrenaline, and somehow unscathed. "You think we could get a ramp rigged out here?"

Tony's eyes gleamed.

They rounded out the evening with a little bar hopping until Erik was nice and tipsy. They cut him off before he reached completely drunk, since he had to report to base at 7:00 a.m. the following morning. Rhodey let Tony blow him in the back seat of the Rolls (the partition was definitely up this time), while Rhodey had his own hand down Erik's shorts. Erik seemed truly relaxed and happy on his last night of freedom, and offered to buy a round of drinks for everyone at their last bar, although Tony was the one who paid for it. He had an arm slung around Rhodey's shoulder and  kept refilling Tony's shot glass from a bottle of Olmeca Altos that he'd somehow convinced the bartender to part with. Rhodey mapped this moment onto his memory - Tony's animated expression as he recounted the crash, the bright sound of Erik's laughter and the rich, coppery warmth of his skin.

 

* * *

 

Getting up before dawn the next day was the most exquisite type of punishment. Surprisingly, it was Tony who jerked upright just before the alarm was about to go off, then poked a finger into Rhodey's ear repeatedly until Rhodey capitulated and went to get coffee started.

He stopped to check on Erik on his way into the kitchen; the door swung open the moment Rhodey knocked on the door. His bedding was precisely tucked away, the pillows artfully arranged against the headboard. All evidence that he'd ever been there had been carefully disposed of.  Erik, on the other hand, still looked a little worse for the wear, with reddish lines from his sheets marching up the side of his face.

"Hit the road in thirty?" Rhodey asked. They'd probably get there early, but better safe than sorry. In Rhodey's world, five minutes was on time, and on time was late. Tony was obviously not in agreement with him on this one.

"Yeah," Erik said, his voice gravelly. "Sounds good."

Rhodey poured a mug of the blonde roast, ridiculously high octane coffee he preferred for himself and a second for Tony, then dumped the rest into a thermos for the road. Erik had refused to go near the stuff, instead opting to chug down mugs of bitter herbal tea every morning. Rhodey dug up a second thermos, and watched the minutes on the oven's digital clock slip by as he waited for the tea to steep. Alone in the early morning dark, Rhodey admitted to himself that he wished they had a little more time.

Erik strode into the kitchen, fully awake.  

"Ready?"

"As I'll ever be." Erik scratched the back of his head, which he'd brushed until the tiny curls marched across his scalp in neat waves. Half a year from now, if he was in the small percent that succeeded, he'd be spat out into one combat zone or another, where only luck, quick thinking, and the men beside him would bring him back home.

Rhodey wasn't much of a religion guy, but he really hoped that whatever goodwill Erik was due, the universe would deliver.  

Without really planning on it, he found himself reaching out to give Erik a hug. After a few stiff seconds of surprise, Erik leaned into it. He smelled comfortable, like good, simple soap and the cool herbal smell of hair grease.

"I'm not gonna see you again, am I?" Rhodey asked, giving voice to a thought that had been lingering at the back of his mind this whole time.

"We'll always have Paris," Erik responded, sly.

Rhodey smiled into his coffee mug, tickled at the idea of Erik cooped up in his room watching _Casablanca_ on his tiny laptop. And all because of an offhand reference Rhodey made.

Rhodey raised his mug in a salute. "Here's looking at you, kid."  

 

* * *

 

 

The road was empty save for a few other people starting their own long commutes in the early morning. Splendid pinks and purples were streaked across the sky, with just a  few wispy clouds overhead. He expected Erik to claim his last precious minutes of sleep, but it was Tony who was passed out in the cavernous back seat of Rhodey's SUV, abandoning all notion of safety to curl up beneath a throw he'd taken from the back of the couch. Erik sat wide awake up front, back ramrod straight in his seat, eyes on the road. A part of him, Rhodey recognized, was already gone.

"Erik, look," he said, when they're idling at a light, "I'm the last person who should be saying this, but - you don't have to do it."

He rolled his head from shoulder to shoulder, working the kinks out of his neck. "I'm gonna save you some time. Reach for the stars, Erik, be all you can be, Erik, you could easily get a job in a Fortune 500 company if you would just apply yourself. " He shook his head.

"Come on, listen. You know I gave up a lot to serve." His eyes drifted to the rearview mirror. Tony's mouth was open and his sunglasses were halfway to falling off his face. He had started to snore. "Tony thinks I don't know that he bought wedding rings five years ago as soon as Vermont made civil unions a thing, or that he's had them in his pocket every time we're in Boston since _Goodridge_ passed last year."

Erik looked surprised at this fact. "And you never wanted to say yes in all that time?"

"At first? I was young, and stubborn. I thought it wouldn't last, and that I'd wake up one day at thirty, too old to enlist and with nothing to show for it."

"But what about now? You regret it?"

Rhodey shooks his head. "I wouldn't call it regret. But I've stopped lying to myself that Tony's money wouldn't have made things - easier, if not easy. A lot of what I thought I'd have to give up if I left the Air Force, well, maybe there were other ways of doing things."

"Yeah, that's all good," Erik agreed, but his voice sounded pained. "But you and me - we're not the same. When you get home, you got somebody waiting for you."

 

***

 

Traffic started to pick up the closer they got to San Diego. The radio announcer droned on in the background; apparently it was going to be a good day for surfing, with glassy water and consistent waves. After a while Rhodey turned it off so he could focus on dodging everyone who didn't think it was necessary to use a turn signal. They still weren't as bad as New Jersey drivers, though. People in Jersey couldn't drive for shit. Eventually Tony woke up and they had to make a second coffee stop to refuel. He was awake and ready to talk at that point, so he claimed shotgun and proceeded to talk Rhodey's ear off the rest of the way.

Since there was a civilian in their party, they wouldn't be allowed to drop Erik off directly on base even though Rhodey, as the driver, had military ID. Rhodey had been out here for business before. So he knew it was a good mile walk from the gates to where the facilities themselves began. Still, Erik declined Tony's offer to wait at the entrance so Rhodey could drive him in. He wasn't the only person being dropped off that morning. There were a couple knots of people here and there, shoulders hunched against the thin, cool air of early morning, stiff-jawed young men with their families, friends, or teary-eyed girlfriends.

"Bring it in, bud," said Tony. He gave Erik his best attempt at a bro hug, and they all pretended not to notice that he had to raise up on his toes to do it.

Rhodey just shook Erik's hand. He held on longer than strictly necessary, letting his fingertips linger against palms calloused from the hours of work Erik put into his body each day. He didn't bother telling Erik to stay in touch; they all knew that their brief interlude was coming to a close.

Tony and Rhodey leaned against the car and watched Erik cross the parking lot as he headed toward the crosswalk, long strides eating up the ground. They stood a careful six inches apart, close enough to be good friends, but nothing more. In these spaces, Tony always obeyed the rules. At the last minute, Erik turned back and cupped his hands around his mouth.

"Hey Rhodes - maybe think about saying yes next time," he yelled. Erik turned away again and jogged cross the street, joining the short line of others like him as they handed over their ID to be checked before disappearing inside.

Rhodey felt Tony's gaze leveled at him from behind his dark sunglasses. He was radiating a pleased excitement, rocking back and forth on his heels. He probably thought they were talking about the two of them moving in together, and not the even bigger, scarier choice of Rhodey giving up his 20-year commitment in favor of a lifetime one. But who knew, maybe he'd been awake during the drive up after all - Tony could be sneaky like that.  

Surprisingly, Tony didn't say anything. He just gave Rhodey the kind of smile that made you feel warm from your toes on up. Rhodey imagined that kind of smile being turned on him, but at a little sunset ceremony, with Pepper and Happy and Ruth and his mother present, and DUM-E holding the rings. For the first time, he was surprised to find that thinking about it didn't hurt.

Rhodey smiled back at him, then fished his keys out of his pocket. "Alright, Tone. Let's head home."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it! Sorry it took me a little bit longer to get the last part out. It's my hope to write some more stories about pre-canon Killmonger. I'm toying around the idea of writing a PWP coda to this, and also writing a sort of AU-version of this story, where Erik ingratiates himself with Tony and Rhodey but his intentions are much more sinister.
> 
> Note: The Goodridge case that Rhodey refers to is [Goodridge v. Department of Public Health](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodridge_v._Department_of_Public_Health), the 2003 MA Supreme Court decision in which Massachusetts became the first U.S. state to allow same-sex couples to marry.
> 
> Thanks for reading :)


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